SA Barbs Vs England

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Dickson's on, but has replaced Lowe who went off for injury. Think Goode's off, with Abendanon at FB. Possibility that Goode could be involved.

Tom Youngs on- Let's see what he can do!!

Gibson on too, for......?

Fearns?

Gibson on for Fearns.

England pressuring line. Waldrom might have gone over...after targeting the SA's tiny scrum half....poor little sod.

Waldrom with enough strength and support to get over the line

Waldrom second try.

14-30

Power of Waldrom impressive against this opposition, hard to say if that would translate against a test side...

Presumably not Gibson pinged there, but the other two?

not sure ASBO. Looked like a great turnover by Gibson, but I think he was pinged for it. Commentators talking about SH turnover laws compared to NH, but i'm not sure.

Sloppy defensive shape there

awful defence from england.SA score.

Gibson wasn't on his feet when first started competing for the ball - although he was when he finally ripped it. - according to the ref anyway...

Try Kitchener, who is having a good game. Good distribution from Allen. 21-35 conversion coming..

.....missed. Harden on for PDJ

This really shows the difference between eng and SA.

SA pick a bunch of plucky no hopers and they score three tries already. Engs no hopers would be 50 down.

Any super rugby team would have hammered this lot.

Lancaster will wish he didn't have this job it they get hammered as they could on Sat if sa improve as they have said they will.

Wade try. Pressure on England's line gets intercepted, thank goodness. Allen picks it off and runs it back before passing inside to Wade.

21-42

Lovely break from Wade again, he's so hard to tackle. Eng need to go wide...

Try SA. Blooming rubbish. Wade's defence is quite shakey.

BaaBaa's score down wades channel!
This really exposes him and his weak defence.

Wade's last try, fortunately for him came as a result of his defensive error too.

Wade suckered for the inside man and left himself too much to do to recover

Sounds like a decent game, England's wingers all seem fairly defensively weak.

England should just keep the ball in hand and tire out this SA defence. Let fitness take over

This team have no defence at all. It's a bit of a shambles to be honest. should have been a 60 pointer. conceeding 4 tries makes some guys sure to have lost any chance of an england place ever.

Wade can't defend can he. He's not a prospect at all.

trebellbobaggins wrote:Wade can't defend can he. He's not a prospect at all.

Oh, do behave.

SA pick a bunch of plucky no hopers and they score three tries already. Engs no hopers would be 50 down

Not sure about that. The Saffa mid week team lost to a Tigers team which was a mixture of foreign first teamers and academy players (mainly academy players). That game included the Saffa front row of Jannie, Chilliboy and Steenkamp getting thoroughly man shamed at the scrum. Depends on the players, the organisation and if there's some players who are up to the challenge of making a name for themselves, for instance that Tigers game vs SA was the first game for a 17/18 year old academy product by the name of Manu Tuilagi.

I've been following this and Wade is making out like a extremely fast....sieve

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/9328350/South-Africa-Southern-Barbarians-v-England-live.html

great point Sam

Habana had the worst defence in SA in his early days... now he's probably the best. Defence can always be shored up if you have courage.

Almost a try for Allen, on the end of a lovely kick through. But lost control- knock on.

Degense can be worked on - he seemed decent in the 2nd half of the England Baa Baas game.

Shane worked on his defense and has brought some big guys down over the years

Exactly. Defence can be taught, but speed and god-given talent cannot. Wade certainly is a prospect, but is a bit of a rough diamond still. Heck, he's only 21

I do enjoy Pascoe's commentary

Anthony Allen crosses the line but forgets to take the ball with him. This game has been played at a frenetic pace and it is refreshing to see a game which is not disrupted by a constant stream of water breaks and contact lense injuries.

Try Care- deserves it

lovely Allen break, from a very nice back move off of a lineout...

Allen blew a 3 on 2.

Hatrick for Wade! God, he knows how to score tries doesn't he?

26-54, final score. Waldrom MoM.

Some good performances, some poor. but as a whole, don't think England will be happy.

Youngs was good off the bench, made some strong carries.

very disappointed that the defence has leaked like a sieve. Its NOT good enough for international level rugby.

bluestonevedder wrote:Hatrick for Wade! God, he knows how to score tries doesn't he?

He truly does. In fairness, I'm pretty sure he's not on his usual wing side, so maybe that explains one or two defensive lapses?

It's not at all Damage. Hodgson's defence looked back to his terrible days, and he let in one of the tries.

Haskell and Fearns were disappointing, Haskell had little go forward. Has he lost size??

Maybe that does ASBO-let's hope so, because they were bad lapses!

Not quite sure playing this sort of SH side is any good for development, indeed for me it might have the opposite effect as those gaps and that level of tackling and defence can lull someone a little. Really don't think there's anything to learn from this other than Waldrom and Wade can score trys with ease against a side of a similar quality to London Welsh (sorry Lyn)

Care's got to be in the 22. Other than that - can't see much changing.
Disappointing, but at least it wasn't a disaster.

Well I'm glad that's sitting at home waiting on the Sky+ box. 70 odd points in a game played at a 'frenetic pace' sounds like a good run out for what is basically an England second team, most of whom have little to no chance of making the test team and are over there purely for experience (providing or gaining).

The key questions for me are:

JTH vs Allen, who came out looking better?

Alex Goode, class act or good club player?

Tom Youngs, can do the business in the loose but how did his lineout throwing go?

JTH made a lovely break for Lowe's try, but that was all really. Good defence. Allen played well, and showed he had a lot of strings to his bow. I'd go Allen.

Goode to me, is a class act. He's got a silky running style of play, and was very composed. Good half.

Youngs, think he hit one and missed one (the one he missed was picked up by England though). Good with ball in hand an aggressive around the rucks.

formerly known as Sam wrote:
Not sure about that. The Saffa mid week team lost to a Tigers team which was a mixture of foreign first teamers and academy players (mainly academy players). That game included the Saffa front row of Jannie, Chilliboy and Steenkamp getting thoroughly man shamed at the scrum. Depends on the players, the organisation and if there's some players who are up to the challenge of making a name for themselves, for instance that Tigers game vs SA was the first game for a 17/18 year old academy product by the name of Manu Tuilagi.

It's nothing like that at all, this SA Barbarians team aren't Super 15 or even Currie Cup level players, they are a division below that.

well that's true. at least raw skill is there but he has to improve the defence a lot before he is ready.

It's nothing like that at all, this SA Barbarians team aren't Super 15 or even Currie Cup level players, they are a division below that

Some of those academy players at Tigers against SA never played another first team game for the club. A scratch side for a mid week game. This team were a Barbarians outfit that was announced weeks ago, plenty of time for organisation plans and moves to be put into place. The level of players may have been higher for the Tigers game but you could also argue that SA sent a stronger team to WR than England fielded today. Certainly the SA front five of Steenkamp/Raphelle/Du Plessis/Bekker/Roussow were all well established players of international experience by that point compared to England's frankly experimental offering today, which had a some total of 5 caps in it (1 for Mullan and 4 for PDJ).

It's by no means an identical situation but it's similar.

its whether you believe a bunch of 2nd team/academy players at one club at better than lets say the best XV players in the championship?

A few of the guys playing that day came on loan for 1 game from championship level teams if I recall.

Haven't seen the game yet as I'm at work but I will assume for now that the Leicester team was a little better given it had guys like Mauger, Murphy & Castrogiovanni amongst the lower league players.